


To Hold

by pluto



Series: Hand in Hand [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-09
Updated: 2010-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 00:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluto/pseuds/pluto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They hold hands, the three of them, like children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Argh, sugar coma. I just felt like writing some Jack/Rose/Nine to cheer myself up, and some handholding, which is my current obsession. I swear I will not write a whole series of fics about people holding hands. Even if I really want to. D:

They hold hands, the three of them, like children.

It's Rose who starts it: her hand sneaking into Jack's as they step out of the TARDIS and onto the curiously pink moon of Ogeno 60. Jack hardly misses a beat--there's only a moment where his eyebrows lift and then he's cheerfully squeezing her hand, earning a broad grin from his favorite blonde. He winks when she looks up at him, makes her blush and giggle a little. The Doctor gives them a sideways look but otherwise makes no comment.

There's a moment where Rose reaches for the Doctor, too, but he doesn't see--too busy pointing out the pink puffballs who turn out to be rather savage inhabitants of the moon. When they're racing back to the TARDIS with the Ogenians in hot pursuit, her fingers brush his, and for just a moment, his long hand curls about hers. But then he slips away, his long legs giving him the advantage. Rose tightens her hold on Jack instead. He's holding her hand too hard, a little overprotective, but she doesn't mind.

Pink puffballs with six-inch teeth _are_ a bit scary, after all.

She catches her fingers in the Doctor's on Kemon Prime, standing under the light of a greenish sun. That time Jack eludes her: he's flirting outrageously with the flowerlike Imdari tourist and doesn't notice her offer.

The Doctor's big hand all but overwhelms hers, his palms cool and dry, his hold almost fatherly--almost, but not quite. His hand about hers is confident but loose; she could slip away from him at any time, if she really wanted. But she won't.

She looks down at their tangled fingers and smiles, and then she feels him smiling down at her. Like feeling the sun on her hair at the beach, she doesn't have to look up and see, she just knows that he's doing it. She holds his hand and leans up against him and smells the dark warm smell of his leather jacket. "Didn't know suns could be green," she says to him, just to say something, just to hear him say something, and he says,

"Suns come in all sorts of colors your little ape scientists haven't come up with. Baki and dseba and spotted and striped..."

"Striped! Now you're just making fun." She elbows him and their hands almost come apart, just the pinkies entwined.

"I'm not!"

"And what sort of color is 'baki'!"

"Something between magenta and teal," Jack supplies, at last diverting his attention from the gently wafting Imdari, and Rose puzzles over that one for a while. Then the Doctor's hand tugs on hers, and she forgets all about the color _baki_ as they watch the brilliantly green sun setting behind the Kemon horizon.

On Umorpaqu' Rose stands with her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the icy glass towers of Morpaq people as several of them crowd and push and bustle around her. She has somehow gotten separated from Jack and the Doctor and she shouts for them as she wanders among the tall, furry aliens. Her voice is lost in the howling wind, and her hands cup her own upper arms but they feel empty. For the first time in her travels she has the strange, sharp feeling of being alone, being alien and isolated.

Someone bumps hard into her from behind and she stumbles, reaching out to catch herself, bracing herself for the feel of ice biting into her stockinged knees.

But two hands catch hers, one long-fingered and with a deceptively casual strength, the other solid and eager and bold and heroic. They haul her to her feet. Rose looks up at the owners of those hands, finds the Doctor's broad grin under piercing blue eyes, Jack's almost giddy smile bracketed by charming dimples.

She squeezes their fingers and expects them to let go, now that she's standing on her own, but they don't. Instead the Doctor tilts his head and says, "Had enough?" and Rose says,

"Never!"

And Jack laughs and calls her "Thattagirl."

And they plunge ahead into the crowd of furry Morpaq, holding hands and laughing.


End file.
